The Berger Prize 2015
Winner of the £5000 annual prize
William L Pressly
James Barry’s Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art
published by Cork University Press
James Barry’s Murals at the Royal Society of Arts: Envisioning a New Public Art
published by Cork University Press
William L Pressly has won the 2015 William MB Berger Prize
for British Art History for his brilliant analysis of the murals in the Royal
Society of Arts, London, by the 18th-century Irish painter James Barry
Dr Loyd Grossman CBE (right) presented Professor Pressly with the
£5000 prize at a reception last night, Monday 7 December 2015, at the Society
of Antiquaries of London
‘Nothing could be more fitting than that this superbly
produced book should have been published by Cork University Press, in the city
of James Barry’s birth,’ said Robin Simon, the editor of The British Art Journal, which administers the prize. ‘Barry’s strange
and wonderful murals, hidden away in the heart of London, are one of the great
episodes in British and Irish art and one of the most mysterious. Professor
Pressly’s remarkable explanation is a triumph of research and reflection and
the book is beautifully written.’
